


Some godly intervention

by imagination_tier



Category: One Piece
Genre: Bad Parenting, But is incapable of talking about Feelings™ if his life depended on it, Cynthia ain't fucking around, In which a goddess thinks Buggy is just neat, Roger himself is a person shaped charisma hammer, Roger pirates are weird enough to just go with it, Rouge and Newgate are good parents, The result of a half remembered dream and a server of enablers, What is Pacing, When you fuck up so bad a literal deity has to step in to fix shit, i don't know how to tag, no beta we die like fools, so many feels, some wack godly nonsense, stereden canon but there are gods chilling around
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25026751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagination_tier/pseuds/imagination_tier
Summary: There are a plethora of strange things in this world.Devil fruits. Fishmen. Strange islands. Bizarre weather phenomenon.And, of course, deities.(I blame the discord for this existing so hard)
Relationships: Akagami no Shanks | Red-Haired Shanks & Buggy & Original Character(s), Akagami no Shanks | Red-Haired Shanks & Gol D. Roger, Buggy & Gol D. Roger, Gol D. Roger & Original Character(s)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 183





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stereden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stereden/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Showing up literal years since I was last active with a new fic, on brand.

There are a plethora of strange things in this world.

Devil fruits. Fishmen. Strange islands. Bizarre weather phenomenon.

And, of course, deities. Big and small. All powerful and dying. Of the winds itself or the old dried up well on an island too small for a proper name. Beings beyond mortality and yet so intrigued by it nonetheless.

And among them, was one such figure of many names, for that was simply a part of being so very old that few remembered what they once called you. Ancient and powerful and nonetheless gentle.

The Nameless First Mother. The Nurturer. Adora, Maker of Cradles. Miss Paper Trail.

Or most commonly in recent generations, the Woman in Paper Masks. Or Cynthia, to a small group.

At the end of the day, her many names and titles were all simply different ways of saying the exact same thing.

The Goddess of children.

. . .

The first time Buggy saw the Woman in Paper Masks, he was around four years old and didn't quite understand what he was looking at.

Everyone knew what a _deity_ was of course. They wandered about the land or over sea or even through the sky, unrestrained by human or nature's law and doing whatever they pleased or their sworn duty.

But for the most part, the majority of them rarely cared for the "lesser sentients" beyond getting called upon, for that appealed to the innate desire to be Seen and Acknowledged that formed the basis of power for some deities. They had their own business to attend to; godly and personal, and so it wasn't exactly typical to see one of them for very long. A slight shadow of a figure out of the corner of one's eye. A strange carving appearing out of nowhere. Never ones to stay put for very long.

So a young Buggy could be forgiven for not quite knowing what to make of waking up from a nap in the forest (a better option than staying home unless absolutely necessary) to one of the most powerful goddesses to roam the land staring down at him, left side of he face half hidden by a sloppily colored smiley face mask that did nothing to hide the amused twinkle in her deep blue eye or the twist of delight that painted her thin lips as she watched him.

The child didn't startle (having long since learned that flinching only made his mother angrier ~~"do you want to have an _actual_ reason to be scared boy?"~~), but it was a near thing.

The goddess before him was tall and curvy, skin an unnatural paper white covered by a dark grey toga with a skirt that moved like smoke, and hair the blue of a cloudless sky that twisted through the air on a gentle breeze that touched nothing else. The many origami artworks that decorated her hair and the three small bouquets of colorful but bloodstained paper roses that grew out of her exposed abdomen were what really identified her as something not quite of this world.

Buggy held very, very still, eyes darting towards any direction he could take off in the minute her attention wavered.

(There were many tales about the deities of the world, as varied as snowflakes in a storm and stones on a beach. And on the island that Buggy refused to acknowledge as anything but the place he was born on, there was always a heavy emphasis on the "Reaper of children fated to die young" mythology about the Woman in Paper Masks.)

The goddess' smile fell into a pout, and she crouched down with her head tilted and her arms wrapped around where her knees probably were.

"Oh don't look so pale," she said gently, "I'm not here to Reap you, little blue. Ugh, this island is going to do things to my reputation I fucking swear."

"Then what are you doing here?" he asked, almost snapping at her.

The Woman In Paper Masks only shrugged dramatically, a paper crane clinging to her long bangs wobbling dangerously before settling down.

"What most people do when wanderlust grips their soul and they can't bear the thought of staying put in one place. Not a lot of interest in watching the mortals from afar, so here I am~.

"Wanna hang?"

"Hang?" Buggy repeated, confused. "Like, hang out?

"Yup," the goddess chirped, "unless that means something different on this island. In which case give me a break. I don't have time to keep on top of all the slang being used, there's not enough hours in the day and I'm a busy lady."

Buggy scoffed despite himself. "Oh yeah. Because bugging random kids in the woods is so much work," he snarked.

Then, he **froze**.

Neither said anything for a moment that stretched unbearably long, Buggy stiffened as if waiting for a blow and the goddess only watching his immediate and instinctive reaction with a sad eye.

Then, she smiled widely at him.

"Ha! You got me good little blue~. Sure we can't be friends?"

Buggy ever so slowly relaxed, watching the goddess with distrusting eyes. Then he thought about it, long and carefully. He didn't have friends, since all the other kids thought that he looked weird and not like a person due to his nose. If he had to choose between being alone or being around any of them–

(Clowns aren't people ya idiot! They're great big jokes!)

– He knew where his stance was.

But...

She looked so _lonely_. And there was a look in her eye that told him that she fully expected to be told to take a hike, or to do him a favor in exchange.

Buggy had been alone for years now, but the Woman in Paper Masks was so old nobody even knew how long she'd been around. That was a long time to not have any friends, to only have your duty as a deity.

"Sure," he finally said with the kind of finality only kids used, and held out a hand to the unnatural woman before him. She looked at the offered hand, surprised.

"I'm Buggy. What's your name?"

An indescribable look flashed through her visible eye.

(Buggy wouldn't know till much later, but he'd been the first to **ask** what her name was in a very, very long time.)

Slowly, she grabbed his much smaller hand gently, a look of saddened confusion on her face.

"I don't remember mine, not anymore. Everyone just calls me whatever they want anyway, I won't mind whatever you call me."

"But that's not _your name_. If nobody else but me uses it, that's okay," he'd told her honestly, "Buggy's not what my mom calls me either."

She seemed surprised at the answer, but then the goddess, no, his new friend, smiled brightly. As if he'd given her a _gift_.

"Then call me Cynthia, pleased to meet you like you wouldn't believe."

(When he was left starving in a ditch, bruised and bleeding and so very sick of it all, he'd seen her standing over him and half hoped that she'd been there to take his soul this time.

But she only gazed down at him with a lone eye and a blank expression, as if to say "so you're giving up that easy?", and Buggy couldn't stop the fire within that roared to life once more at the challenge. He picked himself up, bruised and bleeding and so very sick of it all, and didn't catch the brilliant smile the goddess gave his turnt back as he slowly made his way up.

"So then, where are we going?" she asked airily as she walked at his heel, and Buggy's eyes immediately drifted towards where the island's ships docked.

"Anywhere that isn't here.")

. . .

Buggy met Shanks during what he privately called "get off the streets" hour, those incredibly annoying points in the day where local law enforcement was at its most active. The island he was currently on was close to a major trading route, overcrowded at best and suffocating at worst, and with a lot of rich merchant types around often enough to invest in the protection of their wares. Only a really confident criminal would continue their robberies, and Buggy was skinny, underfed, and damn well knew that he could not afford a broken limb if he got cocky and caught.

Sure, Cynthia could fix him up if he got hurt too bad, but Buggy point blank refused to let her help too much. She was one of the more subtle deities, but nothing good came from her drawing too much attention to them. She could shake off a beating from angry mortals, but Buggy sure as hell couldn't.

(She'd asked him if he wanted to come with her once. Cynthia never said where, never elaborated on it.

But Buggy had been on the seas for months by the time she'd decided to ask, and in his blood and bones and soul, Something yelled at him to not accept her offer.

Cynthia never pushed, content with watching his back and occasionally breaking her promise to rain bloody carnage down on anyone stupid enough to not take her presence as a hint to tread carefully because she firmly believed in asking for forgiveness instead of permission in that regard. And that had been that.)

(" _Of course I wasn't surprised, you belong on the waves and under the sun_.")

He'd been nearly halfway up one of the larger trees in the forest that bordered the port to wait out the guards that would be patrolling (Cynthia already at the top because gravity meant nothing when you could levitate) when he heard it, the soft and questioning noise that the Woman in Paper Masks only made when someone under her domain approached, followed by the rustling sound of someone running full speed through the thick undergrowth of the island.

Buggy stopped his ascent and watched the approaching movement, wary but curious about what could possess a kid to wander this place at this time of night, and settled down on the branch he was on to watch, not even paying attention to Cynthia as she moved to watch from a branch just above where he'd stopped in a flurry of paper birds.

Then, a boy burst through the last shrubs.

The redhead panted harshly as he collapsed against the tree Buggy was in, dressed in plain clothes and with vividly dark bruises visible on his thin wrists and ankles in the sparse moonlight that made it through the leaves, and what looked like blood(?) staining his mouth. The blue haired boy blinked at the strange scene, and let his gaze lift to watch Cynthia's face. Her visible eye was hard, the kind of slow anger that he only saw when she watched children used and abused burning within, but much, much brighter than usual.

His eyes fell back to the boy, to the bruises that came from tight and chafing manacles left on too long and to the plain and threadbare clothes. An escaped slave? Most likely, one that had managed to get out when the ship had stopped.

Buggy really wasn't sure what to make of this, biting his lip as he went through his options. On one hand, it was every kid for themselves on this island, and Buggy didn't really want to go through the trouble of taking in a new kid under his wing. He wasn't exactly in a position where he could be trusting of complete strangers.

But on the other hand, he wasn't as heartless as the other gutter rats that just barely tolerated one another but were always one wrong move away from almost literally cannibalizing each other. And he really didn't want this poor fucker to be stuck wandering about aimlessly without a clue about what and who to avoid if you didn't want to get whipped or worse.

He looked at Cynthia again, and she only smiled at him.

She knew what he'd chosen, and obviously approved. He should've figured as much.

Well then.

"Oi," he called down, the redhead startling at the sudden sound and looking up, a wild look in his eyes. The boy's eyes jumped from Buggy to Cynthia's obviously godly self and to Buggy again, confusion obvious on his face.

"If I were you, I'd get off the forest floor." And with a careful twist he fell a few feet down and landed on a branch, hanging upside down, and held a hand out to the other boy.

"Im Buggy, and you probably know Cynthia already. They call her the Woman in Paper Masks usually, but that's not a name."

The redhead hesitated, just a moment as he held Buggy's eyes, but then.

He carefully got up, and grabbed Buggy's outstretched hand.

"Call me Shanks," the boy said, his West Blue accent thick.

(It was the start of a beautiful friendship, but they didn't know that at the time of course. Though Cynthia always got this smug look on her face when she heard the story.)

. . .

Gol D. Roger came to this island for two things.

Well, one thing and a side venture that Rayleigh decided he was allowed to pursue if he didn't slack on his actual job.

To refill supplies and get replacement parts before Seagull or Rush mutinied or took his head off (whichever came first, really).

And to find out if the rumors of a goddess being on the island were true.

He hadn't expected to find _much, **much more**_ , but that he did.

. . .

He found the goddess easily, the faint echo of an inhuman Voice leading him directly to the back of an alleyway, at a small and ramshackle shrine covered in crumpled origami, burnt out incense, baby teeth, and half rotten fruit. She knelt easily on the filthy ground, absorbed as she was in her work of undoing the origami, reading the messages within, and dutifully refolding the pieces before placing them in her hair.

She had turned to him, face half hidden by a pink and yellow mask in the shape of a puppy's head, and lifted an eyebrow in an unspoken "can I help you with something". From within the smoke of her skirt, a beautiful cheetah with a lone silver eye and large paper roses covering her haunches and left eye appeared. The big cat yawned and stretched luxuriously, and then fully turned her attention to him.

"Good morning, I am Ai; messenger beast of the Goddess of children currently known as the Woman in Paper Masks and her voice to mortals out of her domain. Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir Gol," she purred as she bowed her head.

Figured that a Goddess' beast would know his name.

For his part, Roger's face contorted with annoyance at the overly formal (to him) term. "Eugh, don't call me that. The name's Roger, and that's that!"

"Well, you've found my master. If you have a question for her, I will dutifully deliver her words to you," Ai said.

The pirate thought about what he'd want to ask a goddess as old as Cynthia was, but only found himself drawing a blank.

Well, not _exactly_ a blank.

"Do your legs ever show past your skirt?" Roger immediately blurted out.

Because for all the years that Roger knew about the Woman in Paper Masks, all the myths and legends and sightings of the goddess' physical avatar, he'd always been most confused about the fact that despite how her shirt moved and acted like smoke, her lower half had literally never been seen. Not so much as a toe. He'd asked adults, teachers, and religious folks alike and all of them told him he wasn't taking the proper lesson out of things, so dammit he was going to get an answer from the source.

The goddess only blinked at him, surprise painting her face as she stared at Roger as if he'd spontaneously grown a second head. Then, she grinned, followed by silent laughter shaking her shoulders.

Ai meanwhile gave him the most befuddled look a cheetah could manage.

"You meet an ancient deity of almost unfathomable to mortals scope, and the first question out of your mouth is asking about the logistics of her supernatural garb," the animal asked with a disbelieving smirk that grew and grew. "You're such D, aren't you?"

Roger didn't really get his answer from the goddess herself, on account of her still silently guffawing when he left, but Ai happily explained to him that yes her master had legs, they never showed because the "skirt" moved to keep her covered no matter what.

All in all, it was a fun godly encounter to have. Definitely one that the rest of the crew would find amusing.

Now the boys. The boys were a more involved affair.

. . .

The first time the boys made it onto his radar, Roger had had the niggling feeling that the Voice Of All Things _was laughing at him_.

'he didn't even notice! what a clever little thing the blue one is~. how long till he realizes all his money is missing, an hour? Two?'

Roger had been confused at the strange chatter, unsure what to make of it. His money was safe and sound, it was calm on the street he was walking on and he was damn certain that he hadn't been pickpocketed by anyone. He'd seen some of the street rats of the island, and not to toot his own horn, but he was pretty fucking good at Observation.

He patted his coat to reassure himself that everything was accounted for, and felt,

nothing.

Roger very carefully _didn't_ panic, not wanting to alert whoever had been talented enough to steal his money without him even noticing despite his Observation Haki being active that he'd noticed his belongings missing this early.

He watched the mostly deserted street, watching for anyone that could be described as blue.

A vendor up ahead with a bright blue headband, and who hadn't moved from further than an inch from his stall possibly since morning.

A regal young lady in an expensive looking blue dress, with all the signs of being a visiting merchant's spoiled daughter and definitely not stealthy if the loud clacking of her heels on cobblestone was a hint.

And...

And a brat with an odd red nose, blue hair half hidden by a cloak and doing the beginning steps of that careful 'nothing to see here, don't mind me' dance that he'd only really seen expert thieves pull off.

Roger would've dismissed the boy at first glance like the others since he was certain that the kid hadn't been anywhere near close enough to take something off of him, but watching him move practically unnoticed despite being one of the few people on the street, Roger knew better than to think that. Some thieves could literally steal the clothes right of your back without you noticing after all.

So he watched the little brat from a careful distance, and was utterly delighted at what he saw. The kid was careful, sizing up potential victims with the scrutiny of someone that knew to pick his battles and what would be more trouble.

(Roger very carefully ignored that he'd probably been targeted because his cocksure attitude while wandered around town had left him wide open, because otherwise Rayleigh would sniff out what was bugging his Captain and lecture him. Again.)

And then he watched the little thief meet up with a redhead hanging at the back of a smithy, in a heated debate with a blacksmith (the rest of the workers not even paying any attention as if this wasn't the first time seeing this) about what constituted as "quality swords" and "quality swords you can actually fucking use" with the kind of spunk and spite that only someone that knew what they were talking about could really channel, like how Seagull got with people that thought cooking rice and eggs qualified them to lecture him, or Marian whenever someone said that archeology was a waste of time.

He watched the pair slink off together, subtly watching each other's backs, and Roger saw within these two random brats the kind of potential that was awe-inspiring.

Roger made up his mind then and there.

Those brats were going to be _his_.

But first he needed to talk to them without scaring the daylight out of them.

(It took him seven hours and he knew that Rayleigh was going to be pissed, but it was so, so worth it.)

. . .

"So what do you say, kids? Wanna join my crew?"

"Question, sir?"

"Yes, Shanks?"

"Does Cynthia-nee get to come with?"

"Cynthia? Who's that?"

"Oh, the goddess of children who's standing behind you."

"Good day boys, sir Roger."

"... Ah, it would seem that sir Roger has an interest in your little companions, my master."

"... _wha_?"

. . .

For the most part, the Roger kaizoku didn't know what to make of the goddess that followed their youngest crew members around.

It had been quite the surprise when they found the goddess that their Captain had hoped to seek out on the last island simply, seated on the ship's deck, smoky skirt flowing around her like tentacles and an impressive bird shaped masked colored in a gradient that spanned the rainbow tilted to hide part of her face. Undoubtedly this was the ever powerful Woman in Paper Masks, goddess of children. There had been an awkward silence as they just stared at her, silently asking "what the fuck are you doing here?"

And then Buggy, tiny little Buggy that had been part of their crew for less than a day and held himself with more innate distrust than most adults, had come upstairs, stared at the literal goddess that wiggled her fingers at him with a shit eating grin plastered on her face, and grumbled about how "I'm not you're entertainment for fuck's sake, don't you have anything better to do than hang around me all the time Cynthia?".

And then she'd **smirked** , wicked and sharp like a cat that had gotten into the exotic fish tank.

Okay, immediately drawing their weapons and getting between the brat and her might not have been an appropriate reaction, but few idiots made it far in life without at least knowing that you're not supposed to talk shit to a deity unless you were willing to put up with the consequences, especially right to their damn faces. Unless you were a D. of course, because logic or even common sense meant nothing in the face of their bullheaded stubbornness.

The Woman in Paper Masks (Cynthia?) seemed more amused that angered at the protective reaction thankfully, silent guffaws shaking her tall frame as she banged a hand on the wood beneath her hard enough to dislodge some of the origami in her hair (in order, a full handful of paper stars, three swans, a quite elaborate owl, and a tiny bear). She chattered wordlessly in Buggy's direction, who only rolled her eyes at whatever she'd said.

"She said 'it's good to see that they're not all as ridiculous as their Captain when it comes to dealing with all powerful immortals that probably have a sensitive ego and a tendency to hit when offended'," he recited dutifully.

(It was a well known fact that the goddess of children didn't speak to adults unless they were parents, her words mainly persevered for the young ones under her domain. No one questioned it much, because again. Questioning deities about their decisions was for idiots or Ds.)

If she'd said anything afterwards, none of them knew, since Shanks took that moment to make his presence known and drag Buggy along with him to explore more of the ship without so much as a reaction to the goddess. The Woman in Paper Masks rose immediately, nodded in the crew's general direction, and followed the pair.

"Okay, was anyone going to tell me that goddesses on the ship was going to be a thing!?" Rush demanded hotly.

No one could really answer.

They'd brought it up with Captain Roger, unsure what to do with the goddess on board. But he was unconcerned, which they _probably_ should've expected.

"She's friends with the boys!" he'd said easily. "If she wants to keep an eye on them, why should I tell her to take a hike? Besides, don't tell me you don't want to sail with an ancient goddess?! Think of the marines faces when they realize who they're firing at!!"

It was an interesting introduction to a pattern of behavior that would eventually become normalized to the crew. Normalized enough that they didn't even think of what this bizarre state of being looked like to outsiders till they were hunting down an actual doctor.

Kureha had only raised an eyebrow and nodded once at Cynthia, a gesture that the goddess returned with a smirk and a coy question about if she still had "his little toy if you're still terrorizing the living" that the doctor didn't answer, but did earn Cynthia the kind of terrifying shit eating grin that spelled TROUBLE in all caps and underlined.

But Crocus' reaction to one of the oldest, most powerful and well known deities to ever walk the land being on their ship and playfully poking at the youngest on board while nobody else batted an eye was glorious.

"You know Cynthia; the Woman in Paper Masks of course, who is, currently attempting to shove six full bananas in her mouth at the same time while Captain and some other crew members egg her on," Rayleigh finished tiredly, as if he'd been hoping that a literal goddess wouldn't be getting up to shenanigans while he was showing Crocus around. He ignored the doctor's gobsmacked look as he massaged his temple to fruitlessly chase off the migraine already forming.

"I swear they're usually not like this, this normally only happens twice a month," he tiredly explained over the sound of whooping pirates and the weird, "muffled by a mouth stuffed with bananas" noises of triumph coming from Cynthia as she ran a victory lap.

Crocus had looked about ready to have a heart attack, and Rayleigh would later (if a tad embarrassed) admit that he thought the good doctor was gawking at the spectacle of the crew being so utterly amused by the banana thing that the goddess part of the equation had completely slipped his mind till Crocus himself had brought it up.

Marian was undoubtedly the _most_ intrigued about what kept a goddess of her caliber focused on what was for all intents and purposes a normal child, once she learned that Cynthia had been with Buggy since before they'd met Shanks. She came up with all sorts of explanations, from the goddess hoping to have Buggy as her personal acolyte all the way to the boy secretly being a descendant of hers that had the potential to awaken powers.

She had quite a bit of her wall of oddities devoted to attempting to decode the subject, doubling back to instances of deities taking interest in mortals for non romantic reasons in chronicled events or popular legends, known traits that caught the attention of the goddess of children's attention, or even seemingly unconnected events. Nothing really serious, but a fun exercise nonetheless.

Cynthia was deeply fond of her section on the wall from the second she saw it, and while she did occasionally point Marian in a direction that she otherwise would not have considered in her other research topics, she also took great joy in messing with the one devoted to why she was interested in Buggy for the hell of it while pasting on the most innocent face when called out on it.

(The April fool's she replaced all the paper and news clippings with post-it notes with "Y not?" written on each in borderline ineligible cursive without the archeologist realizing it was one for that would get laughs for years to come.)

"Don't you have anywhere to be, Cynthia-sama?" Rayleigh had asked her just once, not long after they'd gotten the Oro Jackson from Tom.

She only smiled at him, and tilted a head adorned with a smiling bee mask colored in pale green and royal purple towards the boys as Roger took them through more advanced sets with their preferred weapons.

'Don't think you know my schedule, Dark King~,' she'd tapped out in Morse code, and floated off to watch the crew from Oro's crows nest.

And that had been that.

In the New World, the Blackjack pirates and their wildfire of a Captain; Portgas D. "Blackjack" Rouge, Queen of Spades and a thorn if there ever was one in the collective side of the World Government, were the only ones not too unsettled by the whole "there's a goddess on our boat who eats our food and babysits our apprentices" thing. Captain Portgas especially took it the most elegant anyone ever did, only cocking a hip and wondering what a lady like Cynthia was even doing with such "scrubs" after Roger's pretty garbage first impression.

Even Whitebeard had been surprised, if only because he apparently knew the goddess and had been wondering where she'd run off to.

It was strange, to consider her as more than a goddess, distant and powerful.

No one forgot. how could they when she often stared off into the distance, before wandering off the ship and floating across the waves like the fog her skirt resembled because an island nearby had invoked her Name. When her visible eye would spark golden and dangerously as she called upon a flock of storks or a herd of elephants from within the grey swirls of her skirt, all with one eye hidden by a paper rose and one eye that glowed silver as she ordered them to do something in a language so long dead that even Marian could just barely find signs that it had even existed. When occasionally she would pluck the roses from her gut, gone from paper to blood red flowers as the blood from wounds that would never heal had soaked them completely, and toss them overboard while singing a lilting melody that brought memories not one's own of ** _being unwanted and thrown overboard and choking on seawater but finally, finally finding rest as the petals guide you from the sea floor_**.

No, the Roger kaizoku knew fully well who and what they had aboard their ship.

But still, for some odd reason Cynthia seemed perfectly fine as part of their crew. Wordlessly hooting as she went at marines with a branch she'd literally picked up off a random island and never let go off. As she wandered the ship during the graveyard shift and played old games with whoever had drawn the short straw. The amusing scene that happened any time she stole Roban's ice cream and refused to fess up even if she was caught red handed.

Chuckling as she eagerly had thirds and fourths of Seagull's cooking while tapping out questions about if he was _sure_ he didn't have any divine blood in his family somewhere. Watching her eye glinting with mirth as she followed along their journey and how she wordlessly laughed at Oden when he managed to scrape together some manners when he had realized that the Roger kaizoku counted a goddess among their rank.

She fit right in with their band of crazies, and that was that.

. . .

"Sir, there's a report for you. There's a picture as well."

"Just hand it over already, let's see what the idiots need dumbed down for those morons they give the uniform this time."

Rustle, rustle, pause. Rustle.

"Is, is that?"

"A photograph of one of the most popular deities known about; the Goddess of children commonly known as the Woman in Paper Masks, punting a commodore overboard with a maniacal look on her face? Yes, sir."

"Pete's sake, no wonder they sent this here. What the hell do they want me to do about this??"

"Uh, put a unique bounty on her, sir?"

"What?! No!?! I Damn well won't, because there's easier ways to commit suicide than putting a bounty on the immortal head of a fucking deity!! Who do they even expect to turn her in?!?"

"You make a compelling argument, sir."

"Ugh, just. Just issue a warning about it to all ships in the area and make sure the information is circulated. I do not get paid enough to put up with this kind of shit."

"Should I get the ice and birthday cake flavored vodka, sir?"

"Knew there was a reason I kept you around."

. . .

There were many things the Roger kaizoku never noticed about their resident goddess, things lost in between the silence of her nature and their own mortal ignorance.

"Of course she'd keep the kid gloves on," they would say whenever they saw her hang and hover over the apprentices like a fussy raincloud, "what do you expect from a goddess with a domain like children. Just means we gotta make sure the boys are raised properly and not too soft."

They never really questioned her motives behind things, and simply chalked it up to something mortals didn't get.

Like when she'd loomed even more aggressively than Captain on that island they'd decimated for a slight Roger never fully explained beyond raging at the offenders and their allies.

(How she hadn't said a word to Roger about his brutality during the fighting, but had given him a hell of a cold shoulder in its aftermath.)

Or how she circled the boys during the Edd war like a mother bear, glaring at them when they'd dismissed Buggy's terror at the fight and personally ripping the heads off any that dared to stray too close.

(They never saw her sit Shanks down and read him the riot act for going along with the battle despite his feelings, for being too willing to go along with whatever nonsense they proposed without even thinking about the fact that they had kids not even in their preteens on board.)

How she gnashed her teeth with every little comment not meant to hurt, not deeply, but hurt they did.

'Come on Buggy, no tears, buck up already!'

'You know you can't always run, just stand your ground for once.'

'Red's fine! A broken arm's never been a deal breaker for someone like him!'

'Okay yeah, that asshole clipped him pretty bad. But scars are badass.'

'Don't coddle them Cynthia, they need to learn while they're still young.'

'Come one, calm down! You gotta let them learn the hard way sometimes, it's good for them!'

'You can't be there for them forever.'

("I'm sorry for what happened, I should've been better, should've never let that bastard so much as see a hair of them."

"Heh, why am I telling you this? You're not the one I hurt with my stupid stunt. Fuck I'm such a coward.")

The Roger kaizoku never realized these things, not really. Not seriously.

But that had **never** been a reason to forgive.  
. . .

Cynthia watched as the crew's infamy grew in the perilous waters of the New World, as their bounties rose higher and higher as the tales of their exploits stretched far and wide.

(A child with a bounty on his head, and they'd celebrated as if that were a good thing.)

Cynthia watched as they overpowered their foes left and right, storming through any that opposed them like ice breakers and leaving destruction in their wake. Watched as marines and enemy pirates alike called them "monsters" and "inhuman" and all sorts of things that everyone in the crew only took great delight in.

(Except for one, but he'd never voice that of his own accord).

Cynthia watched as they made it to the island at the end of the world and the secrets it held, already aware of its content but still amused watching the mortals learn of things untold.

Cynthia watched as Captain Gol D. Roger became reckless in a way that wasn't his inherent nature as a D. talking louder than normal, courting the Reaper of the Seas even if his crew became selectively blind to his almost erratic need for longer and more harrowing adventures, for close calls and even closer misses that didn't bring him relief, but annoyance.

Cynthia watched as his illness gave him not an inch of rest, as it ravaged his body and health with no mercy. As things and moves that he wouldn't have thought about mere months ago gave him pause, and then steadily worsening pain. As he looked his doctor in the eye and effectively said "let me die".

Cynthia watched as his eyes turned to someone in the distance with the kind of longing she usually loved to see between the guardians to most of her children (since a happy relationship usually meant they were better about raising kids), but here only left her cold as she could tell that whatever he was yearning for would trump staying with his crew through the last few years he still had left.

Cynthia watched as he said his goodbye. Watched as he looked at his crew one by one (the thing she had instead of a mortal heart making a curious noise when his eyes landed on her, clenching in the cradle of her ribs as his eyes told her a story of fascination and awe and kinship and "I'm so glad that you sailed with me even if it was only because you thought I was fucking hilarious, that you were there for the boys before I found them and stuck with them till this day, that you gave them and everyone else on this ship a love uniquely yours").

Cynthia watched all of this, but kept it all to herself. This was business that she had no right to interfere with, for all that she thought that if she were mortal, she would've been more than happy to call this man her Captain and this crew her own.

But she wasn't a mortal.

(She honestly couldn't remember if she ever was. ~~Not anymore~~.)

. . .

A year passed, and then nearly two.

Things changed, the vacuum left in the wake of Roger's missing presence a collective sore spot that none were willing to acknowledge, not really.

A warmth had left with their Captain, and Oro felt almost frigid at times. But it never lasted, for her crew held an unwavering hope against their hearts.

' _Soon_.' hung in the air like smoke, growing ever thicker as the day steadily approached.

(And Cynthia did not dissuade this.)

. . .

The crew aboard Oro Jackson was alive in a way she hadn't been in quite some time, the air filled with excitement and nerves and laughter. After all, their Captain was finally, finally returning.

Cynthia– the Woman in Paper Masks; Adora, Maker of Cradles; Miss Paper Trail; the Nurturer; the Nameless First Mother– did not have a good feeling about any of this.

She had sent a shade of herself to watch over their Captain when he'd left– as a precaution, she told herself. If something were to happen, if his illness would take him sooner, if he were to suddenly decide that he didn't want his crew to see him die, she wanted to be able to tell his Sons that he was fading– and had been, unsettled by what she saw.

Not annoyed, not angry. Simply, unsettled.

She watched from a distance as he met with that delightful spitfire that had ensured the freedom and lives of so many little ones over her pirating years, watched the pair as they settled into an unfamiliar but not unwanted love, and felt the first fluttery sensation of a soul to be form in Blackjack's body.

She watched as the two grew restless in the face of marines and rumors alike buzzing like locusts. Watched as the two fought and argued and eventually compromised. Watched them hold each impossibly close before separating.

She watched as the good, but oh so prideful and unwilling to go quietly Gol D. Roger donned himself in the fervent desperation of a parent who prayed to any god, goddess or deity willing to listen that their spilt blood would be enough to spare their children from the sins they would inherit.

She had seen the look in his eyes as Roger finally let the Hero of the marines capture him. And she knew; from that very moment, that he wasn't going to let his crew, his people, his nakama, save him.

"Cynthia-nee, aren't you excited!? We're gonna see Captain again!!"

She didn't startle at the sudden dead weight hanging off her back like a koala, having sensed Shanks approaching long before he was near and had been prepared for his pounce.

"At ease you little rascal," she said, neatly sidestepping the question entirely. "we'll get there when we get there."

(She wanted to scream.

To yell and rage and tell the other that their ~~not hers, never hers no matter what she wanted~~ Captain was being a moron without anyone to back him up or tell him he was being a fucking idiot and that they weren't going to see him except on an execution block.

She couldn't. It was not her right to.)

. . .

Cynthia's gaze fell upon the man in the dark and dingy cell before her. Skin and bones from a body ravaged by illness for years now. Held down by useless seastone cuffs because the illusion of chaining down someone powerful and wild was more important than acknowledging that they'd probably be able to keep him down with rope, everything a production for the masses and a show of might, "see how we as justice prevail over the impossible". An unmistakable presence missing, no need for it since he had nobody to play his part for.

"You do know that you'll only cause everyone you love trouble, don't you?"

The man on death row lifted his head for the first time since he was locked up at the unfamiliar-yet-not voice, openly confused at the goddess before his cell.

Their eyes met, and a lot of words unspoken flashed through them.

'What are you doing here?'

'Looking for oatmeal cookies recipes, what the fuck do you think.'

'You weren't supposed to be here.'

'Don't tell me what to do asshole. Did you think any of the crazies on your ship would just let this slide?'

'Are the rest safe?'

'For now, but we both know it won't last. Not when you're involved.'

'I'm sorry.'

'The worst part is, you mean it in all the ways that don't count.'

"Thought you didn't speak to adults. I couldn't even hear your Voice most of the time," Roger muttered with an oddly sulky tone. Cynthia could only imagine that he'd decided to primarily take offense with her sudden chattiness. Such a D. the man was. It was equal parts endearing and annoying.

"That hasn't changed much, no," Cynthia admitted, the uncolored flower mask filled with lines and dots on her face bobbing along with her movement. "buuuut I have my exceptions. You simply didn't count as a proper Father till only recently."

The man's face darkened at the unspoken insult in those words, but the Woman in Paper Masks was quite frankly not dealing with his shit today. Especially not today in fact, when she knew what was to come tomorrow.

"Yes, you declared them nakama and Yours loud and clear before the Seas, that's well and good for Davy. But you never verbally acknowledged Shanks or Buggy as your Sons, not the way you have for the little darling growing in the spitfire's belly. You know how us Deities are, quite particular about the steps and wording of how things ought to be, remember? No verbal statement by you, no acknowledging by me, that's just how these things work, Roger," she stated bluntly.

"Are you only here to mock me now I can hear you?" Roger asked, what little fight sparked within him draining away fast. He'd been a dying man for a very long time after all.

"Perish the thought," Cynthia said, waving a hand through the stale air. "you're a certain other Reaper's problem for the time being. I'm simply here to see you with my own eye. Did you intend to do this from the start?"

The man only sighed heavily, and shook his head. He didn't speak any further though, probably fully aware that no justification would have the Goddess of children not be livid with him for denying Buggy and Shanks (his boys, his wonderful boys that he loved so fucking much but that he'd never properly told because he was always so awkward and weird about verbalizing feelings due to how his Haki colored the world around him, she'd hoped so damn hard he would've grown out of it by now dammit) a proper goodbye.

"You know that they're coming, right? That they're going to be in that crowd as they cut your head off? Are you certain that this is what you want, Gol D. Roger? Are you sure that this is the right way?"

Roger lifted his eyes, locked eyes with the goddess before him. A hand was raised, sparking dangerously and prepared to break him out if he gave the word.

"It's the best I can do," he finally answered.

Cynthia only watched him with a look of disappointment ( ~~and grief, but she stubbornly ignored that~~ ) as she lowered her hand, only disappearing with a soft breeze and a crumpled paper star left where she stood seconds before a marine came to Roger's cell.

(That marine was one Monkey D. Garp, but with the thoughts brought on by the goddess that had visited, Roger didn't speak a word to him. He definitely didn't tell him about his unborn son.)

. . .

Alongside what felt like most of the world, mortals innumerable from high and low standing and more gods, goddesses and deities than she'd seen in one place in generations untold, the Woman in Paper Masks watched the execution of the man that was crowned Pirate King and was rewarded with the death he'd always sought.

Many gazed up at the execution block, either jeering or yelling or cursing the man's name, followed by an utter uproar as Pirate King Gold Roger taunted the masses and dared any of them to find his treasure on the island at the end of the Grand Line. It was a cacophony for the history books, a moment that would usher in a new age for the entire world.

But her own eyes were mostly on the two children just past their preteens clinging to one another, huddled against her legs with her hands resting on their colorful heads and cradled within the swaying mist of her skirt as it gently curled around the pair, just a little bit of her might used to encourage those around them to ignore the children with her. To ignore the just barely muffled cries and the heavy shaking shoulders. There was nothing to see here, nothing at all. Don't pay them any mind.

Her eyes were mostly on two boys; too tiny to witness this in her opinion, but too big to take comfort in blissful ignorance either. She would not deny them their choice to witness what was about to happen, no matter how much she knew this would hurt. After all, for all she was their Goddess, she wasn't and never would be their Mother.

(Not for the first time, she wished she was a mortal. It was a selfish wish for her to make, to want to abandon a whole world of young ones for just two as if she had the right to want such a thing, but Deities were not all Paragons of Virtue and she never claimed to be one.)

Cynthia's eyes were mostly on two boys who were moments away from becoming fatherless.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by the Hozier songs I listened to to stay sane while this One Part kicked my ass. Also god this got so long.

The Pirate King Gol D. Roger had been dead for a few days now, and the vacuum that was once his missing presence aboard Oro had made way for a deep and painful wound that no one knew how to deal with, steadily festering the longer they ignored it (because the pain was at least steady in a way that healing couldn't promise to be).

The boys were finally asleep, but up till then they'd been crying. They probably hadn't stopped since she saw them all alone and mourning in that writhing crowd, since she'd stood behind them and let them lean on her as they watched the man they called Father die as ignoble a death as a pirate could get.

As the cheering swelled as his head rolled, as they'd both watched his blood spill across the wood and hidden their faces in her stomach, Cynthia had shifted herself larger than usual, bent down to pick them up, and propped them both on her hips; like she used to do back when it was just the three of them wandering about without a plan, and when the boys were tiny and fragile and she was the warmest touch they'd known for years.

(They still were. Fragile, that was. Cynthia didn't really think that mortals ever stopped being so. Existence was such a heavy burden, heavier still when you couldn't comfort yourself with the laughter of Stars and the whispering of the Seas and the Earth.

But then, mortals lived and loved so fiercely, laughed and cried and raged and felt innumerable different emotions in a way that only very young deities could, and perhaps that was the true greatest gift upon this land.)

And now she held them close still as the adults argued over something that she quite frankly didn't care for. Whatever they were clucking on about would come out eventually, and till then she had something far more important to do.

"Cynthia," a voice she'd thought was asleep whispered.

"Yes, Buggy?" she replied.

"Will this ever stop hurting?" he asked, Voice confused and angry and so very, very hurt. The risk, Cynthia thought to herself, that came with letting people into your heart. When they suddenly left, no matter how carefully, they'd always leave with a painful jank nothing could avoid.

The goddess shifted her head enough to properly see Buggy since he was in her blindspot.

Perhaps, perhaps not," she said honestly, because nothing about this situation would become better if she tried to lie about things. She wasn't that kind of condescending. "Feelings are different from physical injuries, Buggy. You can look at a bone, trace the faint leftovers of a fracture, but if it was handled properly and given time to rest, it will be healed and healthy as can be and eventually it'll be impossible to tell that it was broken once upon a time. But hurts of the soul are tricky. You could go a lifetime while feeling like you've never made a step towards getting better no matter how hard you tried, or you could heal for years and suddenly wake up with the wound open and bleeding and no idea why."

Buggy huffed and held her tighter.

"What's so good about getting to know people only for them to do _this_ to you. It's not fair, being a mortal sucks," the boy said, shoulders shaking.

"In some ways, I'll admit. But if you were like me you probably wouldn't care as much as you do for Roger, now that he's dead and back when he was alive."

 ~~A lie. A lie a lie a lie a lie a dirty rotten lie because she was weak~~.

( ~~Cynthia was so fucking happy that Buggy's Oversensitive Haki was for the most part useless on her, her nature too unnatural for him to make sense of it. She didn't want to think what she'd do if he were able to call her out on her bullshit, if she couldn't lie to herself anymore.~~ )

Buggy settled down, obviously conflicted between not wanting to be hurt but not wanting a life without the things that made mortals such fiercely emotional beings.

The goddess stayed with the boys until Buggy finally fell asleep, plucking two of the most bloodstained roses from her stomach and placing them over the boys' hearts with an intent to chase away nightmares. Then, she turned her attention back to the rest of the mortals on the ship.

They'd quieted down during her and Buggy's conversation, and now the only sound in the air was a soft conversation.

Deciding that she didn't care for walking right now, the Woman in Paper Masks turned to smoke and paper before racing to where the crew had congregated, reforming between Seagull and Rush.

"So, what's been going on," she immediately asked the group as she whisped into physical being.

They all looked at one another (a faint but obviously uneasy feeling carefully bubbling in Cynthia), before everyone turned to their Acting Captain.

Rayleigh only sighed, an uncomfortable look on his face. He was most likely thinking about how deeply uncomfortable it was to be in his new position, and Cynthia couldn't see him grow into it no matter how many years would pass.

Then, he spoke.

"We've been discussing this for a while, and have finally come to a decision. As Acting Captain of this ship, I declare this crew disbanded, from this moment on the Roger kaizoku are officially no more."

  
  
  
  


_Oh._

She hadn't felt dread as deep as this is generations untold.

Cynthia hated it.

. . .

The shade of Cynthia's physical form that had split off to continue watching the island of Baterilla was on edge, and had been for quite a while now.

There was blood in the air, thick as smoke and three times as smothering.

It didn't truly exist, not now, not yet. But she could taste the copper tang of fresh blood that saturated the air like smog, the dirty salt of tears that trickled down on skin darkened from hours spent digging and digging as fast as possible be _cause there were always more that needed to be laid to rest, always another funeral to plan when a child was once more deemed a potential slight against the world at the behest of a rumor's rumor and another body to be prepped and another grieving family to be gently shood away from the land that was rapidly becoming a cemetery all in its own because more and more holes needed to be dug for this was painful and backbreaking work and it needed to be done before those bastards that had the fucking balls to say that this was justice and they were absolute dared to throw another loved ones onto a fire like unwanted garbage_ –

Cynthia shook her head violently, but it did little to fully dislodge the intense sensation of the not-memories-yet from her head. Little would in the face of an entire island in mourning.

The bloodbath that was apparently meant to come was so heady and cloying, so great and terrible in its reaches, that the winds blowing through the island filled the future sky with the smell of murder and death and fresh cemetery dirt so thick that it leaked into the present. And even more worrying than the scent of blood, was how young it all smelt.

Children. Whatever horrible fate was to befall this island would primarily target children and those "stupid" enough to try and protect them or for the sin of carrying a child.

The Woman in Paper Masks would've written it off as nothing but paranoia and crossed wires due to how frazzled she'd been lately, and if she were anywhere but the very island at the center of it all she would've shaken it off easily. But she knew the scent of a massacre waiting to happen intimately. 

(She once exclusively roamed where children were, in those long passed days of being new to the whole Goddess thing, and was a first person witness to how innumerable times the lowest of lowlifes targeted the defenseless in their asinine need to hurt the enemy without having the fucking balls to challenge then to an actual fight because they were dirty cowards.

It was revolting to witness, then and now.)

Even as a mere shade, she was still the goddamn Goddess of children. Cynthia would not let this pass, not if she had anything to say about it.

This could not stand. So many young lives hung in the balance, so many families ripped and torn apart by a sickening atrocity carried out by those that **_dared_ ** to call themselves noble protectors (which they were, in a very literal sense), and the Goddess of children would not allow this abomination against mortals to occur. She fucking refused.

. . .

She appeared in front of Portgas D. Rouge with the thick smoke of funeral pyres heralding her arrival, blackened blood spilling from old wounds and staining the bottom of her fox mask and part of her covered face, the front of her skirt, and the mortal woman's actually pretty nice carpet.

"Good evening little spitfire," the Woman in Paper Masks greeted even as the startled pirate attempted to lob her head off with a vicious strike of her bo staff. Not that it did anything but pass harmlessly through the insubstantial form of the shade like a cat swatting at smoke. "So sorry that this has to be a warning."

"What do you want?" Rouge growled out with teeth bared and heart racing, staff still poised to strike but lowered just a tad. The last few months had been fucking exhausting, and that wasn't even counting the overpowered but insanely delicate form of Haki she needed to use to convince her little one not to grow as fast as they should've, to ignore the rules of time and nature itself and slow down.

She never had a patient temperament in general, she didn't have any patience for the utter bullshit that had been steadily boiling for the past year now, and she definitely didn't have any patience for even a damn goddess bleeding all over her fucking carpet while calling her a name that only her parents were allowed to use thank you very much. 

"An omen of ill intent and blood unspilt looms over this island. The target, my Domain. Will you help me stop it before it gains a chance to start, little spitfire?"

The Rouge's eyes narrowed dangerously, her staff quivering with nearly visible Armament Haki.

"Cynthia, cut the riddles and tell me what the fuck you want before I see if I can manage to separate your body from your head still."

A tension seeped into the goddess' form, her thin veil of professionalism wavering noticeably at the heat of Rouge's words.

"Ruin what little light-heartedness to be found in this fucking godawful shitshow of a messed up situation why don't you," Cynthia grumled a bit, but straightened her spine and leveled a look at Rouge that would send a lesser mortal running, but only made the woman break out into a cold sweat.

"I can smell a massacre to be looming over this island like ozone in a lightning storm. It will be approved by the World Government, and will kill so many toddlers and babies and unborn children and their mothers that the island of Baterilla will hang suspended in perpetual grief for decades as her people are unable to even speak a word of the truth unless they want the entire place wiped out by a buster call for having the audacity to want to tell the truth. Though there will be those that would've preferred a buster call from the start, since that way at least they wouldn't have to build a whole new cemetery for all the murdered while trying to keep it together for the living. All of this off the rumor that on this island, a woman who carries the Pirate King's child lives, and such an offense against the world must be "taken care of" for the good of the people."

As the words spilled out of the goddess' mouth, Rouge's pupils shrunk into pinpricks, the message sinking in fast as she partially let go of her staff and brought her free hand to her stomach. She sat down heavily as she processed the words, staff in her lap and glaring at nothing in particular.

Then, she looked up at the goddess before her, and in her eyes was a new rage.

"Keep talking," she demanded as Cynthia followed her example and sank down to the ground in a mass of curling smoke. Blood still fell from her wounds, a steady drip drip drip underlining the goddess' words as she explained the depths of what was to possibly come.

Rouge didn't care as she listened attentively. The carpet could be dealt with later.

. . .

The island of Baterilla was in a subdued kind of panic. Or a high-key kind, depending.

After all, it wasn't very often that a goddess, no, a **_Goddess_ ** came to your home and said that a sanctioned bloodbath was coming.

There had been a restless energy before the Woman in Paper Masks appeared from within the woods at the heels of Miss Rouge, a trickling of rumors starting to coalesce into the claim that the late Pirate King had fathered a child and the mother was among them. No one thought much of it, but nothing good ever came from such words and many worried at the reaction that would come.

(People spoke of it rarely, knowing better than to oppose the World Government overtly. They weren't ones for mercy unless they got something out of it.)

And then the Goddess of children came, with her beasts sent prowling through the waters and skies of the island as if she expected something to attack at any moment and her wounds bleeding unchecked, and the entire population of the island promptly freaked the everloving fuck out.

(The Woman in Paper Masks was no Deity of war or combat, she was devoted to the children in her domain and all that connected to it first and eternally.

But she fought often. Had numerous times stood between the defenseless and those that sought to harm them for untold times across the ages.

They say that her sole unborn child had been lost the one time she did not fight back, killed in her womb as she was struck down, and she had never allowed such a thing to happen if she could avoid it since.)

She had told them bluntly what was coming for them, what the Government would do in their search for the possibility to find a dead man's unborn child that might as well not exist. The way she spoke of the massacre felt like hearing a lone survivor speak of the calamity they'd survived, so vivid and real that it shook the heart of anyone that listened.

And many did, for only a fool would ignore a Deity when they had something to say. Even if they brought nothing but horrific news.

"Invoke my name," she had whispered to any ear capable of hearing her as the beginnings of mass hysteria threatened to consume the land whole, her voice ringing like an unearthly bell, "and I will protect you. Nothing will kill you or your children as long as I stand between them and what seeks to hurt and shatter, but you need to **_ask_ **."

For weeks straight, the shrines to the Goddess of children overflowed with offerings and prayers and tears. Siblings and parents and friends alike praying for the safety of the pregnant. Young and old parents guiding their children's fingers with shaking hands as they folded anything and everything they could out of any paper they had on hand, with prayers spilling and overflowing past their lips that their children wouldn't suffer under the merciless heel of the people in power.

With every prayer, every teardrop, every craft, power built within and around the island of Baterilla.

Elephants and storks alike formed even more solidly from the accumulated smoke of burning incense that hung low to the ground like mist, patrolling the waves and skies and attacking any with ill intent that dared stray close.

Origami and other paper crafts were placed in every nook and cranny people could find and some they could just barely reach, in every forest and open field, on the sands of the beaches and on the rocks that jutted from the sea at high tide. The wind could not dislodge them, and out of the corner of one's eyes they shimmered oddly.

Every little thing, a single thread that moved and wove between and among itself into a mythical plea of pure intent.

**Do not let our children die. Do not let our families be torn apart by evils that call themselves righteous.**

Rogue watched and felt the presence of her home shift and tilt under the power of an island's worth of collective belief and a pissed of Goddess. It was, well. Indescribable, the feeling of something so ancient almost shaping the land.

"You think this will be enough?" a now adult childhood friend had asked her, eyes to the sea where the forms of the Herd and Flock cast strange shadows in the waves as her hands held her heavily pregnant belly.

"It better fucking be," Rouge had hissed out, fully intenting to cut a bloody path straight through any marine ship stupid enough to get close.

(She had meant to be careful.

Had fully intended to be sneaky and out of sight till the whole rumor blew over. 

Had ~~stupidly, so fucking stupidly~~ hoped that the Buddha wouldn't be so low of a man as to order the mass slaughtering of children because her idiot husband scared the delicate sensibilities of the Government too much.

But now? When she knew what was at stake? When she knew what they'd do?

The marines better pray to whatever God or Goddess or Deity they could get to answer them that they never crossed paths with her or hers ever again.)

Rouge and Cynthia stood on the island's largest beach, not an inch left untouched by origami and waiting for something that the goddess hadn't explained beyond 'you'll know when it happens'.

"The moment of truth," Cynthia had muttered suddenly, and Rouge followed her gaze to a lone figure in the distance, steadily making their way closer.

And her blood went cold.

Because the figure she saw hobbling their way on the origami covered beach was a rare figure even among deities. The Eyes that Bleed, nameless and undying chronicler and Deity of unwitnessed disasters, hunched under the weight of their massive tome that chronicled the numerous atrocities they were meant to bear witness to.

Rogue's fists shook, in rage and fear and helplessness that rose higher than the waves of a tsunami. Had they been too late? Were the marines already coming? Could she stop them? Would–

And then a hand was on her shoulder, and she turned to see Cynthia's widely grinning face.

"Calm down already~. Because that, little spitfire, is a really fucking good sign," Cynthia breathed reverently.

Because as the Eyes that Bleed gingerly sat down where the sea met the beach and opened their book to a blank page, Cynthia saw in their gnarled and shaking hand a pen that dripped gold.

"The Deity of unwitnessed disasters has a reputation, yes, but there's a part of their duties mortals know little of. That pen they're holding? The ink is gold. They only use gold ink to scribe things just barely averted."

Rouge stared at Cynthia, eyes wide at the meaning behind the words sank.

"The island is safe," the goddess crowed victoriously.

And for the first time since the Woman in Paper Masks appeared before her and told her a massacre was coming, Rouge breathed in and her lungs swelled fully.

. . .

No marine would ever set foot on the island of Baterilla again.

They attempted once, hunting down the rumor of a child fathered by the Pirate King, but the ride was unnaturally rough for one of the Blues. Especially for one of the Blues.

Sleep was plagued by dreams of oceans of blood and rotting viscera and tiny hands that ripped flesh from bone. Screaming so loud and shrill that people's heads rang with pain hours after waking. Waves that moved unnaturally, attempting to physically push them back. All signs of a pissed of Deity that wanted them to turn back, **now**.

But they didn't, pressing forward with the kind of stubbornness that would be quite admirable if it was coming from literally anyone else.

They finally entered the island's waters, filled with paper lotuses that drifted on the waves. And then, they saw the Herd and the Flock belonging to the Woman in Paper Masks.

Well, heard was more accurate a word for what happened. Since within moments the massive elephants of the Herd had trumpeted loud before sending tidal waves at their ship, and the shrill cries of the storks were lost in the screaming and crying of eyes being nearly gouged out by sharp beaks, those not part of the assault sending winds comparable to a storm from the Grand Line at them. The ships groaned under the relentless attack, not one bit equipped to handle this caliber of weather since they were made for the blues alone.

With no other options, they fled from the assault, and it was only when they were well into open seas (past the last few paper flowers that had remained rooted to their spot on the water despite the unholy ruckus) before the unnatural animals let up their assault.

Hundreds of storks rested on each elephant's back as the beasts watched the ships with glowing eyes, daring them to come closer. And then Cynthia her damming Goddess self was there, hair whipping in the gales of the storm her Flock had called upon and tall enough to touch the storming sky and an expression of rage on her completely exposed face.

'That was never a good sign' would be the understatement of the millennia.

Her voice and Voice had rang loud and clear over the storm her animals had called upon to chase them off, as cold as hell frozen over and promising bloody and painful retribution unto anyone that dared challenge her.

"If a single marine or agent to the World Government dares to touch this island again, I won't show mercy like today."

With half their fleet destroyed, they retreated and reported what had happened with shaking words. 

Fleet Admiral Sengoku the Buddha called all surviving ships back once the reports came in, and ordered to put a stop to all pursuits of the leads and for all traces of the rumors to be wiped out as thoroughly as they could be (which was quite a lot, with the full backing of the World Government).

Nothing good would come from marines being spotted attempting to get past a barricade enforced by one of the most popular and powerful Goddesses to ever exist. Especially since her domain was children.

The people were ignorant and easily misled, but few Fleet Admirals before him had been bold enough to attack a Deity themselves, much less one of the caliber and popularity that the Woman in Paper Masks was of.

They nonetheless never made it very far and always ended up the subject of a "and this is why you don't fuck with deities" lecture.

As far as the people of the world were concerned, the thought that the Pirate King had reproduced was nothing more than a ridiculously scary but purely hypothetical situation.

As far as the World Government was concerned, the child most likely existed on the island and was under the direct protection of the Goddess of children, and they would bide their time before working on the issue once more. Till the child had grown up and was no longer hers to guard.

As far as the island of Baterilla was concerned, as they held their children and pregnant family members close with tears in their eyes, the Woman in Paper Masks was their favorite Deity and the World Government could suck on a dead whale's rotting tail.

And as far as Portgas D. Rouge was concerned, as she clutched the paper owl that had fluttered towards her as she finally prepared to set sail for the Grand Line with the name one of Whitebeard's islands scrawled across, she had a crew to meet up with an an Emperor to visit so she could yell at the fucking moron she married.

(And two new sons to meet, but that was nobody's business but hers.)

. . .

It was a quiet day on the Oro Jackson, most of her crew gone like mist in the midday sun.

The two apprentices on board were hiding away in their room, not easily spotted where once the crew couldn't go so much as half an hour without one or both of them barreling past for whatever reason. 

The only person that really sought them out nowadays (the only person to bother since Roger's head rolled) was the goddess on the ship, who refused to let either of them develop messy coping mechanisms unless she absolutely had to.

So she trailed their steps wherever they went in a way she hadn't done since they were so much younger, watching them with scrutinizing care and doing her best to keep them away from the numerous half finished bottles that littered almost every square foot of the Oro Jackson.

(She didn't always manage it, but dammit she was trying. More than the rest of ~~their~~ Roger's crew could say.)

She let them cry into her arms or hair, as often as they liked and always prepared to whisper soothing lullabies into their ears till they finally fell into a mostly dreamless sleep. She was no Goddess of dreams or sleep, but one learned tricks to easing nightmares as the generations passed.

(Not that the crew knew of that. Buggy and Shanks had both begged her to be low-key about her more overt fretting and comforting for years now, since the one time Scopper Gaban mercilessly teased Buggy for hiding away behind Cynthia when a fight spilled too close to his hiding spot for comfort and she'd easily stepped in to hold him close. 

She'd glared at him all night for that, but no one thought it was anything but the goddess being annoyed with him for not appreciating the softer side of her job enough. At least she never cursed anyone for that, they would often joke around the dinner table, unaware of how Buggy hunched into himself and Shanks went quieter than usual.)

The goddess watched the pair, barely visible from where they were currently curled up somewhere underneath the blanket fort she'd helped them build, the place where paper roses burst out of her gut **burning** and both hands tangled in her hair as she tried to soothe her frazzling nerves even a little bit.

It didn't work much.

Cynthia did not have a good feeling about what the Roger kaizoku were planning.

She'd listened to the explanation that followed after they'd dropped the bomb on her, and the idea had its merits, she would definitely give them that. It would be much easier to avoid detection if they split up. Staying together only painted a target on their back, one that any one of their many, many enemies would zero in on like piranhas on a stuck pig.

But she was still concerned. Their grief (collective and personal) was deep and painful, a gaping wound held closed by worn bandages, alcohol and prayers.

And that was the kind of distracted mindset that let things slip past it. 

Let mistakes pile up. 

Let horrible things happen until they literally couldn't ignore it anymore. 

For fuck's sake, they hadn't even realized that their ship's own damn klabautermann was fighting tooth and nail against the course she was forced to sail from the second she'd realized what was going on!

Cynthia wanted to rage against them, to scream and rant till they fucking understood what they were doing.

But...

But the disbanded Roger kaizoku were the boys' guardians now, and despite their god awful grasp of emotional support and a distressing tendency to forget what constituted as acceptable levels of child endangerment even on a damn pirate ship, they were decent at their duties still.

 ~~She had no right to interfere. Not yet anyway~~.

She would give them a chance, to either realize they were seriously screwing up or to redo their stupid plans, even to surprise her with some facet that she'd managed to miss, but she would wait before she judged them.

"Cynthia-nee?" a small voice called.

The goddess crawled into the structure, stopping a few inches from where the boys were. "Yes, red rascal?"

Shanks fidgeted, tears staining his face and the faint smell of alcohol on his clothes (Cynthia very, very carefully tucked that away for now, his budding drinking problem could wait) as he kept one hand and tangled in Buggy's shirt and the other fruitlessly wiping at tears that would be replaced in five minutes tops.

She waited patiently to see if he would say anything before speaking herself.

"Do you wanna cuddle, red?" Shanks didn't respond verbally, but he didn't need to. Honestly, Cynthia didn't need to be an all powerful Goddess to be able to tell when a person craved creature comforts. She always had a knack for it.

She fully shifted to smoke and loose paper and snaked her way between the two, carefully reforming in such a way that she didn't wake Buggy up from his fitful slumber and that she could pull both of their faces to hide in her neck, her hair spilling over all three of them like a climbing plant and thrumming with her own unique and unnatural energy that easily blocked out the outside world; even to Buggy's insane Oversensitive Haki.

The Woman in Paper Masks didn't know how to put up walls for Haki, didn't understand the first thing about the technique in general since her will didn't manifest the way a mortal's did. But this? This was the best she could do against how sometimes the world around him was just too fucking much for a preteen to deal with completely unfiltered. ("How does an entire pirate crew go years without realizing this" was a question she'd long since stopped asking herself since it only made her angry in a "going to smite mortals" way.)

"Should I get Ai in on this? She's still super comfortable~," she teased gently as Shanks grip on her back and front of her toga tightened (as if afraid that she'd disappear if he didn't hold on hard enough).

She felt him shake his head, new tears already starting to soak into her hair.

"Then it's just red and the two blues again, just like old time huh rascal? It's okay," she whispered sweetly as she hugged him tight, "you can rest. I'll be watching you."

As Shanks fell back asleep, Cynthia let her thoughts wander away from what might come for the rest of the trip, focused on keeping her the boys as healthy and cared for as she could.

. . .

Cynthia watched the two boys finally, _finally_ rest.

'Well then,' she thought to herself as she knitted torn flesh and broken bones back together. 'they failed horribly.'

For a brief, shining moment, things had looked promising. Buggy had zeroed in on a beautiful ship being sold after it was taken from local smugglers, while Cynthia had managed to keep Shanks distracted with visiting the marketplace for supplies and doing the rounds for her shrines on the island.

They'd made plans, whispered to one another on the Oro Jackson (and out of range from the others). To head for East Blue to see if they could pin down Shanks' birth island and figure out if he wasn't secretly a D, just to make sure. To lay low as far away from where most of the people with a grudge against Roger sailed, maybe hunt down some treasures not behind fifty health risks, twelve different hazardous terrains, and with a 30% chance of some haughty and murderous cockgoblin not being happy with pirates taking what was "rightfully theirs".

And then there was a twinge of recognition in the eyes of a pirate she didn't care to remember. And things had gotten very hectic and deadly very quickly.

She hated to even think it, but it was quite frankly a miracle the boys hadn't **died**. They were injured; badly at that, but nothing that they wouldn't be able to manage even with their lacking medical skills. Her presence only sped the healing process up.

She'd seen the look in the eyes of the pirates chasing them, petty and rabid and unwilling to stand down when a chance to "air their grievances" presented itself in the form of two defenseless apprentices without a hair of their guardians in sight.

They wouldn't give up so easily, and the goddess had the sinking feeling that there were many, many pirates that would do the same. Roger hadn't made it as long as he had without collecting his fair share of enemies, probably even more since his infamy was the talk of the Seas.

**This would not be allowed to continue.**

"My turn."

She summoned her sworn beasts, the Herd and Flock crowding around the tiny ship as her messenger sat before her. The klabautermann aboard was wary, but put up with the crowding. She was a good girl in Cynthia's opinion, as cussed and protective a ship could be without manifesting physically and already ride and die with her crew of two.

"You've called upon us, my Goddess?" her dearest Ai asked, the cheetah confused as to what would warrant summoning all of them so soon after the protection of Baterilla was put in place.

"Yes, Ai," Cynthia answered. "I have business not of the living to attend to. I'll try to be quick, but till then the others will protect this ship and it's crew."

"But I have another job for you. I need you to visit my Favored and tell him there are children in peril on these waters, and I'm in need of a safe island for them to rest and hide till I'm finishing with my business. Can you do this for me?"

The big cat only smiled with all fangs on display, tail tip and paws emitting an odd mist as she stood up from her spot and readied herself to run.

"It would be nothing short of my pleasure, my master," she purred, and in a cloud of mist and fur she was gone.

Cynthia watched her go, a smile on her face despite the circumstances.

"Watch over them now," she reminded her beasts one more as she left a large paper boat with an explanation on the foot of Buggy's bed. The sound of caws and trumpeting from outside answered.

And then she was no more on the ship.

. . .

Pirates, as a generalized group, weren't religious. Not the way landbound folks tended to be.

Many of them were too free spirited, beholden only to themselves and the inevitability of death itself and Davy Jones (which was a package deal, admittedly).

But even if proper worship wasn't much of a thing among the children of Davy Jones, everyone had their favorites. And among the Whitebeard kaizoku that was undoubtedly Cynthia, goddess of children. Her domain overlapped heavily with family after all, and she was notoriously in love with found family no matter the ages involved.

So when the cheetah who's paws seemed to dance on low hanging mist (that anyone who'd paid even a little bit of attention during school could recognize) pranced across the waves and leapt at the Moby Dick, nobody had anything to say except a friendly "hello Ai!" or an angry "fucking hell don't run me over you oversized fleabag, watch where you're running for Davy Jones' sake!"

Whitebeard himself was more curious than concerned. Cynthia (the name she'd happily yelled at him when they met in the Grand Line once more) was a great gal and bluntly said that she liked him for offering to be the Father of so many lost souls, so he was used to either her or her animals showing up at random points during the year. It came with the territory of being a Favored mortal, but he'd grown used to the whole state of affairs a long time ago.

He liked the messenger cheetah called Ai most though, there was something just delightful about the beast.

"Well hello there," he shamelessly cooed at the big cat making herself comfortable on his lap without a care, scratching her tiny (relative to him) head as she purred up a storm. "Now what's a pretty little thing like you doing on this old ship?"

"This is a business visit unfortunately, sir pops," the large feline said past her rumbly purs. "A grave injustice has been committed against two children that my master has been watching closely, and she calls upon your aid to rectify the situation before they're traumatized for life at the absolute best. Or most likely, much, much worse."

Edward Newgate stopped his petting, and frowned deeply at that.

For the past few years, he hadn't heard much of his favorite deity and assumed she was wandering the Blues for whatever reason. It wasn't as if the Grand Line held much appeal to someone old enough to have mapped the entire place ages ago if they could be asked to care about that kind of shit. And deities simply weren't interested.

He'd been honestly surprised when he learned where the physical avatar of the Goddess of children was found more often than not though, especially since he found out about that particular news from checking the marines updated information packet on unique pirate situations.

Among the (recently disbanded) Roger kaizoku.

They were good people, twice as raucous as any crew mad enough to even arrive, much less thrive in the insanity that was the New World was expected to be out the gate and following one of the most charismatic Ds Edward had seen in years.

(Charmed Oden right from under him, and yes he was definitely still pissed off about that. If he wanted to hold a grudge against a dead man he was well in his damn right to do so.)

They were good people, even if he thought that they didn't handle their apprentices as gently as he personally would've liked. Most of his own children were either already adults or in their late teens when he'd taken them as his own and knew their way around the place, but even with the hunted look that would probably never truly leave their eyes, tiny things like Roger's boys needed to be handled with care. A lot more care than most assumed.

But even with how the littlest brat with his blue hair was almost always on edge and had an almost palpable panicked energy to him when the fights the two crews got into went past rough housing, or the way the little redhead obviously spent a lot of time telling himself that he was absolutely comfortable with the level of violence surrounding him, they never made him concerned the way some of his own children did. They were obviously happy and healthy on the Oro Jackson even if it wasn't the most ideal child rearing situation, and he knew that if anything fishy had been going down Cynthia would've burned every person on that crew and buried the ashes in the heart of a mountain solely to add insult to injury within seconds of realizing because you don't fuck with a Deity.

("I just think they're neat!" she'd told him during the down time of one of their skirmishes with the Roger kaizoku, white face pleasantly red as she eagerly shared some kind of concoction undoubtedly of godly make if it could get her drunk this fast.

"Just saw the lil' blue one day and thought, 'my physical avatar doesn't do shit 'cept wander around and go where I'm invoked en masse to make the process jussa lil' ickle bit smoother. I can watch a brat that seems neat for a while' and then I _did_."

"And Eddie, Eddie my guy you would not believe how fun this kid is to be around. Then he met the little red and I fucking swear it was like seeing all the stars align and the heavens weep with joy it was so beautiful. And we haven't even gotten to the pirate part. These people are crazy in the best way even if they've got the collective emotional range of a tablespoon and kinda suck at the parenting thing, like really suck, holy shit I worry about the future kids that might have them as their folks. I'm so fucking happy man, you cannot understand," she'd babbled on, wide smile and scattering paper stars and assorted paper crafts with every wild flail as she emoted with her entire body.

It was the most lively Edward had seen her since inviting her on board the Moby Dick to celebrate the then latest addition to his family within minutes of meeting her.)

So for Ai to come to him, stating that the two boys her master had been watching over for all these years were in peril? A peril that would traumatize them _at best_?

That caught Whitebeard's attention quite firmly.

"Explain, Ai."

She tilted her head low, ears pinned flat to her head at the uncomfortable news she was to share.

"The Roger kaizoku have disbanded in the face of their Captain's execution, and have scattered to even beyond the winds. But in their fresh grief they did not think their approach through as carefully as they should've, and thus it came to be that the apprentices known as Shanks and Buggy were left completely defenseless as the then remaining members of the crew attempted to lure the ones already chasing them down away," with every word out of Ai's maw, a deeper and deeper pit dug itself in Edward's stomach.

"They had hoped that the children would be left be if there was a more appealing target, and that the presence of my master would dissuade attackers. They were wrong, and the boys had just enough time to secure a ship before they were being hunted themselves. It took them weeks to shake off all the cretins and they did not make it through that time unscathed no matter what my master did to keep them safe. She's had to heal them from numerous injuries already, and the winds whisper promises of ill will on them still."

"Where are they now?" he demanded, already mapping a route to either get to the boys or to receive them once they made it to him.

"Under the protection of the Herd and the Flock. The master has sent me to you to ask for permission for them to land on one of your islands on their behalf, since even the most foolhardy hunter would pause at attempting to touch your territory. It should take them no more than a month if the Herd guides them."

A single month? But that meant–

"They. They dropped their apprentices off in the New World," he said numbly.

"And without any way to get to them in time if things go wrong," Ai said with a mournful keen, and Whitebeard felt his blood go from ice cold to boiling in an instant.

"Tell those boys that they have my explicit permission to land on the nearest island they can, no exceptions," he declared hotly. He was no saint, but even he wouldn't stand for bodem feeders that were targeting the apprentices of a crew not even disbanded for a month.

"Where are they now?" With a silent swipe of her tail, Ai crafted a smoky replica of the waters closer to the start of the Grand Line with a tiny paper boat floating upon it.

It wasn't area where the Emperors held any particularly large sway, the new blood pouring into the area making it the kind of constantly fluctuating and snowballing clusterfuck of utter nonsense that few were willing to deal with unless they had a really good thing going on.

"They are currently around here, it will take them a while to reach the waters where your kin have set your mark."

"Marco!"

"Yeah, pops?" his son replied easily, landing on the back of Whitebeard's chair as his wings turned back to flesh.

"Write the little kitty a letter just in case it's needed, and give all islands close by a call to be ready to receive some special guests."

"You are a good man among a sea of filth, sir pops. You prove once more why my master thinks of you as one of the most stunning examples of a Father to come into being," Ai bowed lowly as Marco left.

The cheetah accepted the short letter Marco tucked into her collar with a luxurious lick across the phoenix's face before she bounded completely out of Whitebeard's lap, and within one leap she was off the Moby's deck and almost completely gone, a faint trail of mist the only thing left in the wake of her sprint.

The Captain of the ship breathed in, careful to not let his fingers dig and dent into his armrests. Calm, he needed to fucking stay calm.

Reading the fucking morons the riot act for their atrocious parenting would have to wait. He had some kids to offer sanctuary. That always took precedence.

. . .

The seas that separated the living from the dead were quiet as the Goddess of children tore through the veil, unseen feet landing on the waters with a wet slap as her many paper tokens burned away in purple flames (not truly gone, but they were of the living and had no right to exist in the beyond). Her avatars still in the human realm were busy, but there was one more thing she needed to do before the situation would be properly fixed.

Her gaze scanned the waters surrounding her, watching but mostly _feeling_ the ebb and flow of the many Reapers at work. It was a hard job, to ferry souls to their resting place, but Deities were no mortals and they were well equipped for the task.

She watched and _felt_ and **listened** for a very specific energy, of salt water sprays and burning sun and corals growing on things abandoned to the grasp of the deep. Of wet sands between bare toes, odes to the ocean that was their Life and Love, and a ship that moved against even the strongest current for her path was true and undaunting.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**_There._**

She turned her head enough to see with her good eye (twitching only a little bit at the fact that the wound where her other eye once was was exposed, but admittedly a better reaction than she usually had), and with a flurrying gale of laughter shaped light she pounced on one of the biggest forms on these waters.

The Goddess landed on the deck of an ancient and worn ship, massive and battered by the elements for untold generations and age showing in every tattered sail and smooth plank. Spectral chains a ghostly green snaked throughout the air and through the water, painting the ship and it's waters in an unsettling aura of greens.

Without preamble, Cynthia fell to her knees and banged against the ancient wood.

Because her willingness to use her manners had fucked off probably around the time Shanks nearly died within minutes of being effectively abandoned by their his crew.

"HEY DAVY, GET THE FUCK OUT HERE I WANNA TALK!!!!"

Almost immediately, two things happened.

The Flying Dutchman arose from the wood behind her, sword poised to strike whatever the threat might be with extreme prejudice; and in front of Cynthia, the Reaper of the Seas appeared in a shapeless tendril of colored smoke.

It formed into a shape that looked, surprisingly human if one managed to ignore the completely black eyes. Dressed in sea worthy clothes even the most crotchety of old timers would call "pretty damn old fashioned", dark hair that was pushed back, and with hands and a face worn by the old touch of time that few Deities ever felt.

But then, this was no normal Deity.

Davy Jones; Reaper of the Seas and Captain of the Flying Dutchman, stared at the Goddess before him, expression between annoyed, angered, and bewildered. He finally settled on annoyed, irises flickering with green smoke as the chains stopped their mindless movement and turned towards the Goddess on board as if they were alive and readying to strike.

He watched his ship's spirit tighten her grip on her sword, and shook his head with a heavy sigh.

"Stand down Dutchman, I'll deal with her." The klabautermann frowned, but with a short nod she melted away.

And with that he faced Cynthia properly.

"Cynthia, what the actual fuck are you doing?"

The aforementioned Goddess didn't so much as blink as she dropped into a sloppy cross-legged position, leaning back on a hand and staring up at her fellow Reaper.

"Hi Davy, I need to borrow a soul you picked up a while back. Goes by the name of Gol D. Roger? Pretty suicidal? Knows about the island at the end of the Grand Line? People have been calling him the Pirate King for a hot minute now? I've got some business with the guy."

Obviously, Davy Jones was not convinced. "And what, pray tell, do you need a recently deceased man for? If he has unfinished business, that's none of your concern, Goddess of children. He died with a head held high and a shit eating grin on his face, and with a surefire certainly that he was done in the world of the living."

At that Cynthia scoffed, mind going back to how two children were hunted down the moment their remaining crew left them behind.

"Yeah well he's not actually done because that fucker severely overestimated the emotional capacity of his Crew in the face of his death, Davy. I need him to come with me."

Davy only sighed, shaking his head at the incoming headache.

You know I can't let you waltz off with a dead man whenever you feel like it, right? This isn't in your jurisdiction, Cynthia. The _man_ was of the Seas and died well into adulthood. You have no power here, Goddess of children, and you should take care to remember that."

Cynthia's face scrunched up in anger and annoyance, rising from her lazy slump to her full and looming height as the sneer on her lips pulled at the gaping wound that was once her eye (for a deity couldn't hide their true face within this half realm), and almost immediately Davy Jones knew what the fuck she was about to pull. Saw it as clearly as he did the stars maps burned into his memory of untold skies.

He glared viciously, the waters surrounding his ship roiling alongside his anger.

"Cynthia, don't you fuckin–"

"I invoke the Right of Domain!" she snarled viciously, head held high as the waters surrounding them churned and writhed even more with the weight of a Declaration hanging in the air.

"The pirate known as Gol D. Roger is yours and the Seas, obviously. Never tried to argue against that. But he is also the Father of the children known as Buggy and Shanks of the disbanded Roger kaizoku! He gave them no chance to say goodbye for his own selfish reasons, as the Goddess of children I invoke the Right of Domain to call upon his soul so his Sons may yet know true peace in the face of his death!" In the depth of her wound, a glint of gold bubbled in synch with the flashing of her intact eye.

"Will you deny me, Reaper of the Seas?"

Davy Jones only stared, annoyed but silent. This wasn't the first time the Woman in Paper Masks had pulled this kind of bullshit on him, and he knew it wouldn't be the last. He also knew quite intimately that he couldn't do anything now that she'd made her intention and objective clear.

There were always ways to bring a spirit no longer of this world back to the world of the living for a short time. Incredibly dangerous ways. "Not an inch of forgiving of even the smallest mistake in the ritual" ways. But to get a Deity on your side? To have one champion your plight?

Well, that cut through quite a lot of the steps. Basically all of them in fact.

"Why?" he asked instead. "Why go out of your way for these two random children?"

Cynthia rolled her eyes mockingly as she watched his gaze flicker to her injured stomach for a scant moment. An annoying recurrence.

"Well for one, no child is a "random" one for me. And not everything I do leads back to my dead kid, Davy poo. Stop thinking I'm that much of a stereotype," she snapped. "But as for why, because I _can_ you utterly stuck up nimrod. My Duty is to watch over children, to nurture and protect them when the adults in their lives don't manage as well as they should and to guide them till they no longer need my hand to hold theirs. It's what I'm meant to do."

She smiled wide with all her teeth (especially the ones that didn't fit on a human face, too large and sharp) on display, the gold in her eyes solidifying into glowing orbs.

"Besides, getting involved with those "random children" put me in the most ideal position I could've had to stop another government sanctioned slaughter for "justice" from scarring the entire generation of an island. Many lives were saved, I say I'm well in my right to exert some extra effort on their behalf to make sure their moron Father says a proper goodbye and love you."

Their eyes met, hazy green smoke opposite of molten gold.

  
  
  
  
  


And with a weary sigh, Davy Jones admitted defeat. There was no point in fighting a battle already decided after all.

"Fine, you can cart him around for a while." He held out a hand, and a trapdoor formed within the wood between them. And from its depths, the late and fully executed Pirate King arose.

"Davy I would like to start off by saying whatever they told you, I wasn't the person that tried to mess with Dutchman's sails or your study. I just got here and don't fancy finding out if a person that's already dead can still be gruesomely murdered."

Cynthia grabbed onto Roger before he could continue with whatever he was going on about, giving him a little shake. "Whatever drama's going down on this ship can wait fuckwit, we've got a date with destiny. And by destiny I of course mean the people that your bullshit stunt and selfish desire to go out in a bang has hurt the most."

"Cynthia!?" Roger yelped, who only smiled at her recently acquired ghost.

"Oh yeah Roger, it's me. Shake those cobwebs of your dusty self and put on your metaphorical Sunday's best fucker, we're going on a little family trip and gonna have some proper goddamn communicating if it kills you again~."

"I expect him back before a week has passed dammit! Keep him longer and I **will** make this a problem," Davy yelled at the pair.

Cynthia half turned to look at him, just to make sure that he saw her good eye roll at his commentary. "Oh hush you, no need to get anyone else involved. It should be plenty of time to meet with the Sons and the spitfire if my little kitty love's done her job already. Which she undoubtedly did because she's the best and most competent blessed messenger beastie in the whole wide world~. So much better than your stupid seagulls Davy, you really need to fucking brach out of the salt ocean man aesthetic at least once in your damn existence."

"Just get off my ship before Dutchman throws you off herself."

"Didn't even need to specify that! Bye bye Davy, love you I'll be back soonish expect a nice gift to come with the idiot!!" and with no preamble Cynthia yanked the confused soul of one Captain Gol D. Roger closer and left the half realm that the Flying Dutchman sailed upon.

Captain and klabautermann both let out a sigh of relief at the now empty space between them.

"It's like she only gets more aggravating the more times you encounter her," Davy muttered moodily to himself before shaking himself out of the thought.

He had business to attend to after all.

. . .

As they made it through the woods of Fernwood (an island belonging to Whitebeard, and where Cynthia currently was if the old Captain wasn't lying when he'd welcomed them in person about an hour back), Buggy felt like shit.

Which was weird, since this was probably the safest he'd felt since ~~dad~~ Captain left them. The leader of the Herd had easily pulled Speed against the winds and currents, and the other elephants had spent most of their time at sea smashing anyone that dared to get close to bits. They'd made it to Fernwood insanely fast. 

Even now the sky was filled with the cries of storks that shed smoke, sending word of any ship that seemed suspicious or daring enough to start something on one of Whitebeard's islands.

But still, he felt like shit. The paper boat explaining that Cynthia had things covered and that she'd meet them on the nearest Whitebeard island had only made him feel worse once he'd found it, ashamed that he needed a goddess to watch him when he should be managing himself already. He wasn't a little kid anymore Davy Jones damnit!

"Bug, c'mon. You know what Cynthia-nee says, just 'cause we're older now doesn't mean we don't need help sometimes."

"Doesn't mean I won't complain," Buggy grumbled.

There was a Presence within his range, otherworldly and strange. Cynthia? No, he knew the faint echo the goddess made, and though it was coming from the same direction this presence was unfamiliar.

Wait, no. _Unfamiliar-yet-not_. Like something left out in the sun and bleached of proper colors, different and off but still recognizable.

Buggy pushed it down. It was probably nothing.

Cynthia was in the middle of a clearing, seated cross-legged on an old fallen over log and both hands wrapped tightly around something that glowed brightly. A glow from with the strange presence was emanating from.

Buggy quite deliberately ignored it, whatever it was could wait till he got some damn answers.

(His heart was unwilling to open itself to the possibility that there was more to the thing that was a Goddess clutching a glowing object with the kind of reverence she rarely used when around them. Cynthia had always been transparent about where the lines of her powers were, back when he was much younger and curious about her, and he knew that she wouldn't tread on the territory of another Reaper unless it was for a very important reason.)

( ~~Helping a pair of gutter rats wasn't one.~~ )

Shanks ran ahead of him, jumping on Cynthia with a happy cry. She smiled genuinely at him from underneath a bear mask that was half colored in while the other half had a skeleton drawn in, but curiously didn't open her arms to catch him like she usually did, hands staying put around whatever she was holding. The redhead didn't mind, and simply swung himself around to latch on to her back and neck like a monkey.

"Blue bug, red rascal," Cynthia greeted warmly, "good to see the Herd and the Flock took care of you properly. How have you boys been since I've been gone?"

"Good! We met Captain Rouge a half hour back. Did you know she a-and," Shanks stumbled on his words, head catching up with where the sentence was going, "she and, Captain. Did you know they're gonna have a kid!?"

"Yes, because I'm the Goddess of children and I see all within my domain." She paused for effect, and then snorted inelegantly.

"Pfft, naaaah. Can you imagine the kind of headache having that kind of constant omniscience would get you? No, I sent a shade of myself to stalk him when he left."

Buggy gave her a Look, filled with exasperation and tired acceptance.

"Cynthia, we've talked about this. Stalking is a shitty thing to do to people, even if you know."

The goddess childishly stuck her tongue out at him. "Oh fuck off blue, I'm a mortal damming Goddess. The rules you lot abide by are irrelevant to me since you mortals are just going to decide to make completely new ones in a couple hundred years. Also I'm an adult millennia times over, I'm allowed to make stupid and weird decisions."

"What did you run off to do anyway, Cynthia-nee?" Shanks asked from his spot on her back.

"Oh, little bit of this, little bit of that. I had to call down my full protection on an island, but _that_ explanation can wait till the spitfire's down for explaining with me. In the meantime, I got you boys a non-alcoholic pick me up~! Get off me for now Shanks, you're gonna want to have some elbow room without needing to knock me over."

Shanks got off the goddess, curious as to what she wanted to show. Buggy could admit that he was curious as well.

Cynthia slowly started to open her hands, and almost immediately a rush of seawater burst out of the space between her fingers. The smell of salt and wind filled the air, and the spilling water rose fast and dramatically, making it to the boys knees within seconds.

Both of them freaked at the bizarre occurrence, nearly falling over as they tried to back up but stopping once they realized that the water would reach them no matter what. Buggy felt incredibly off kilter, there was something wrong with the water. Well, not wrong exactly. More, off. Different. Like how Cynthia's skirt wasn't really smoke for all it behaved like it, or how the Herd and the Flock weren't true animals and thus felt accordingly.

It was only then that Cynthia opened her hands completely, and from within her palms a column of water that swirled manifested. And within the waters, something appeared.

No, _someone_.

A figure that was muddled by the refraction of light within the rushing water, but with a presence that swelled and became much more substantial with every passing second.

A presence that completely stopped Buggy's heart mid beat.

The water dissipated fast, and a man stepped out onto the rapidly drying grass, dressed in his finest clothes and looking healthier than he'd been in years. A man that Buggy loved fiercely but hated for leaving them; especially the way he did, a man that he'd watched die.

Then the man stepped forward, once, twice. And wrapped him and Shanks (both of them frozen) in a tight, tight hug.

"I'm so sorry that my lack of foresight got you boys hurt," Gol D. Roger, their Father Captain said with tears streaming down his face.

He wasn't as warm as she should be, skin cold and clothes chilly even though he was as untouched by the water as everyone else. His Voice wasn't right, echoey and not as solid as it was supposed to be, like it once was. but none of that mattered.

Because his Voice was nonetheless bright and clear, even cold the calloused hands holding him close were so familiar that it made the blue haired boy want to cry till his voice went hoarse _again_ , and he was holding Buggy and Shanks as tight as he did when they'd sneak into his room during bad storms.

For a blissfully perfect moment, everything was right in the world.

Then, Buggy reared one of his hands back as far as he was willing to send it and hit his ~~dead he's supposed to be dead you saw and felt him die and saw his head roll Cynthia what the fuck did you pull to bring my dad back~~ Captain square in the jaw.

The hit didn't _quite_ connect, almost like there was something important missing, but he still yelped at the blow and Buggy would take that.

"What the hell were you thinking you idiot Captain!" Buggy cried, tears streaming down his face all over again, but fuck he'd thought he was past the damn waterworks stage already.

"Yeah, what the fuck was any of that even supposed to be!?!" Shanks yelled, fury and hurt warring in his eyes as he beat against his dead(!?) Captain's chest.

Despite the anger pointed at him, Gol D. Roger only picked them both up and swung them around like he used to when they'd been smaller and more at ease about such overt shows of affection, laughed loud and heartily and fuck, Buggy was crying ever harder than before because he thought he'd already heard that laughter for the last time years ago. "Yeah, I deserved that didn't I? You boys wanna get some more licks in now, or later?"

Buggy wiggled just enough in his Captain's grip that he could properly face the goddess on the sidelines.

"Cynthia, what the hell did you do!?" Buggy demanded, because who else would've brought the soul of a dead man back to the land of the living for them?

"Gol D. Roger dying without telling his Sons that he loved them properly was an affront to my duty and domain. I couldn't let that shit fly, you know how bad that would look on my test?" she answered in a lilting tone, as of she hadn't gone against the laws of nature itself to make this happen.

"Sons?" Shanks repeated the word numbly.

"Yeah, of course you boys are mine," Roger said before Cynthia could respond herself, fierce and loving and almost daring anyone to challenge him so he could show them how much he meant it. "We're all children of the Seas and Davy Jones, but you're also **_my_ ** kids. I really should've told you this ages ago, but I've never been the sharpest tool in the box."

"You're kinda a moron that follows their gut wherever and would've been dead ten times over if you didn't have the luck of seven devils themselves~!" Cynthia piped up from her spot on the log, looking as smug as someone with a quarter of their face hidden could be. Which was a lot apparently.

Roger didn't even argue with her, instead shaking his head with a throaty chuckle before turning his attention back to the boys still in his arms, their warmth leaking into his cold self a bit.

"Buggy, Shanks, I love you two, as sure as the sun sets, the sea is our life, and Cynthia is the Goddess of children, **_I love you two with every fiber of my heart and every bit of my soul_ **."

Ugh, Buggy was going to be so damn dehydrated at the end of all this.

. . .

"Come on old timer," Cynthia suddenly said when a few, hours had passed. Fuck things seemed to either move in slow motion or speed by before Roger even knew what happened.

Neither boys were happy with the announcement.

"Can't you stay? I don't want to say goodbye! _Not again_!" Buggy cried out, eyes still red from crying as the both of them clung to him as if they'd be able to keep him that way.

Roger leaned down a bit so he could look his apprentices, his boys and sons, properly in the eye.

"Oh Buggy, you're a bright boy. You and Shanks both. You don't deserve to get haunted by this old man. Besides, this isn't a goodbye forever, we'll meet again, when it's your turn proper to meet Davy Jones," the man promised.

"I love you boys, so, so much. I could never find the words to tell you because they always seemed so, lacking for what I felt. But I'm sorry that I didn't even try."

He ruffled both of their hairs, etching their smiles into his memory.

"Give the Seas hell if that's what you want, and watch over your baby sibling. Tell them I swept their beautiful mother off her feet instantly."

"Tell them you were a lovesick fool that she tossed overboard almost immediately and nobody understands why the hell Rouge gave you the time of day, got it dad!" Shanks chirped easily, smile wide enough to hurt and tears still streaming down his face.

Seas he was going to miss them.

. . .

"Cynthia," the dead pirate said after they'd seen Buggy and Shanks off at Rouge (Davy Jones dammit he missed all of them already, had when he'd let himself get got and probably would till they joined him on the Flying Dutchman).

"Roger," she replied with not quite questioning tone.

"Thank you, you didn't have to do this."

Cynthia none too gently batted his head, rolling her visible eye at him. "Course I did. Goddess of children nimrod, this whole shindig was begging me to get involved," she said easily as she turned away from him, but her body language (a lot less guarded now the boys weren't nearby anymore) betrayed her a lot more than she realized.

'Because I was part of your crew as well, even if I'll never admit it.'

'Because your my idiot Captain too you stubborn piece of work, and what you did fucking hurt you asshole.'

'Because I love these boys just as much as you do, like they were my own. I want them to say goodbye properly.'

"Are we heading back to the Flying Dutchman?" he asked as he fell in step with the goddess.

Cynthia smirked at the horizon, wide, unsettling, and promising rather mean spirited mischief. "Nah, we've got a pit stop before that. _You've_ got a crew to yell at while I sit in the background and **_laugh_ **."

The dead man blinked, but then he laughed, loud and hearty but with an edge to it. "How could I say no to that?"

The rest of the Rogers didn't know what was fucking coming.

Roger couldn't find it in himself to care. He had some **words** for them after all.


End file.
